Dear MoveOn member,
If you are outraged and worried as hell that Republicans in Arizona have resurrected a total abortion ban from 1864, this email is for you.
In 1864, white girls and women were considered the property of their husbands or fathers, rape was not a crime, and women could not vote.1
William Claude Jones, the lawmaker behind the 1864 abortion ban, was married to a 12-year-old girl when he passed the law, just weeks away from marrying a 15-year-old girl, and a few years later would marry a 14-year-old girl.2
And making abortion illegal is just the first harrowing step—in Arizona, other red states, and nationwide if Donald Trump wins in November. MAGA leaders are now openly talking about making birth control illegal, banning interstate travel by women and girls, repealing the 19th Amendment—which gave women the right to vote—and even ending no-fault divorce.3,4,5,6
John, more could not be at stake in November's election. We have to fight back with everything we've got and defeat MAGA politicians, and we have something you can do right now to help.
Next week, MoveOn is organizing house parties across the country, where people will come together to write postcards—focused on the loss of legal abortion, bodily autonomy, and self-determination—to targeted voters in key states. At a time when confidence in the media and institutions is at an all-time low, this personal outreach is more important than ever.
Our biggest cost to pull off the house parties, after paying our organizing staff, is postage. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is raising stamp prices for the fifth time in three years, and the postage to send tens of thousands of handwritten postcards to voters will be expensive.7
Can you chip in $5 a month to MoveOn to help us buy a roll of stamps now and each month through Election Day?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
So here's the plan for house parties, and where rolls and rolls of stamps come in.
Our data team has identified the key voters who are essential to win in November. These are "surge" voters who became active for the first time after Trump won the 2016 election, but they do not vote consistently. If they vote, they'll very likely vote for Democrats, so the question is whether they will vote.
That's where MoveOn comes in. We're shipping custom-printed postcards with messaging about how abortion rights and access are under attack and with the names and mailing addresses of these hand-picked voters on them.
At these house parties, MoveOn members will handwrite notes to these voters, expressing the power they have in this election and what's on the line—which research shows will help boost actual turnout in November!
And hosts just have to drop the completed cards in the mail. When they do, the postage will automatically be charged to MoveOn, because we're not asking the MoveOn members taking the time to write these cards to also pay for them at the same time.
Each stamp costs $0.55, which isn't all that much per voter. But when you scale it up to hundreds of thousands of voters, that's where it becomes pricey.
Let's say there are 10 people at a house party in a MoveOn member's living room, making their hands sore by writing personalized messages to voters. If each of them writes 40 postcards, that's 400 voters we can reach. But that's also 400 pieces of postage we need to cover—and there will be house parties all over the country! That's the math we need in order to reach enough voters to win.
It's a small price to pay to reach these voters, keep Trump out of the White House, and make sure there is no MAGA majority in either house of Congress to ban abortion nationally. Will you chip in $5 monthly to help pay for stamps this month and every month through Election Day?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
Let's be clear: People are going to suffer terribly as a result of Arizona's total abortion ban.
The Arizona Supreme Court's decision read, "[P]hysicians are now on notice that all abortions, except those necessary to save a woman's life, are illegal."8
That means people who are raped will not be able to have abortions in Arizona. That means pregnant people who face very serious, but perhaps not life-ending, complications will not be able to have abortions in Arizona. And the list of people who will be harmed goes on. And on.
Arizona's Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes called the decision "unconscionable and an affront to freedom."9
President Joe Biden called the ruling "a result of the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women's freedom."10
Of course, a day earlier, Donald Trump once again took credit for overturning Roe v. Wade and said abortion should be left to the states.11 States like Arizona.
It is not the 1800s, John. We must fight back. But so many people will sit out this election if we don't connect with them, because they don't think their voice matters.
Those are the voters we're writing to at our house parties next week, and we'll reach out to those very same voters on the phone, through door-to-door canvasses, and through vote tripling over the coming months to help convince them that their vote is essential and then to turn them out to vote on Election Day.
Will you help us send handwritten postcards to tens of thousands of targeted voters by chipping in $5 a month to MoveOn?
No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.
Thanks for all you do.
–Mohammad, Ankur, Mona, Isbah, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "Arizona supreme court upholds 1864 law banning almost all abortions," The Guardian, April 9, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/189319?t=8&akid=381335%2E40999114%2E8gM3te
2. "Meet the 'pursuer of nubile young females' who helped pass Arizona's 1864 abortion law," The Washington Post, April 10, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/189699?t=10&akid=381335%2E40999114%2E8gM3te
3. "Justice Thomas: SCOTUS 'should reconsider' contraception, same-sex marriage rulings," Politico, June 24, 2022
https://act.moveon.org/go/164026?t=12&akid=381335%2E40999114%2E8gM3te
4. "The unconstitutional plan to stop women from traveling out of state for an abortion, explained," Vox, September 12, 2023
https://act.moveon.org/go/189700?t=14&akid=381335%2E40999114%2E8gM3te
5. "BlazeTV co-host: The 19th Amendment 'should be repealed,'" Media Matters for America, November 16, 2023
https://act.moveon.org/go/189701?t=16&akid=381335%2E40999114%2E8gM3te
6. "The Coming Attack on an Essential Element of Women's Freedom," The Atlantic, September 26, 2023
https://act.moveon.org/go/189702?t=18&akid=381335%2E40999114%2E8gM3te
7. "Post Office wants to hike stamp prices for 5th time in 3 years to make up for 'defective' pricing system," Fortune, April 9, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/189703?t=20&akid=381335%2E40999114%2E8gM3te
8. "Read the Arizona Supreme Court's Abortion Ruling," The New York Times, April 9, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/189320?t=22&akid=381335%2E40999114%2E8gM3te
9. "Arizona Supreme Court lifts stay on 1864 territorial law, banning nearly all abortions," Arizona's Family, April 9, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/189321?t=24&akid=381335%2E40999114%2E8gM3te
10. Ibid.
11. "Trump's Abortion Announcement," Abortion, Every Day, April 8, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/189323?t=26&akid=381335%2E40999114%2E8gM3te
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